Page:The case for women's suffrage.djvu/170

 enjoyment, and gratification of men, was closely allied to the idea that peasants and workmen exist solely for the satisfaction of the wants and pleasures of the aristocratic classes. Ideas of this kind die hard, and it is Mary Wollstonecraft's chief claim to the regard of posterity that while she proved to demonstration the falsity of the notion that makes the place of women in creation entirely dependent on their usefulness and agreeableness to men, she had a keen appreciation of the sanctity of women's domestic duties, and she never undervalued for a moment the high importance of these duties, either to the individual, the family, or the State. On the contrary, one of her chief arguments against the subjection of women was that it prevented them from performing these duties as efficiently and as conscientiously as would otherwise be the case. She wanted, as she says in her preface, to see women placed in a station where they would advance instead of retarding the progress of the human race. Her argument, she adds, is built upon the simple principle that if women be not prepared by education to become the companions of men, they will stop the progress of knowledge, and that, so far from knowledge and freedom inducing women to neglect their duties to their families, "the more understanding women acquire, the more they will be attached to their duty—comprehending it—for unless they comprehend it no authority can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner." She argues with force and justice against the habit of regarding women and their duties simply from the sexual